Business

Saturday June 7, 2008

New Maxis WAP portal to tap various segments


KUALA LUMPUR: Maxis Communications Bhd expects its newly launched mobile WAP Hello Kitty and Friends portal to tap into different segments of its 10 million customer base.

Chief operating officer Jon Eddy Abdullah said the company had over 3.2 million active users and recorded 20 million hits on its mobile WAP portal each month.

From left: Sanrio Digital (SEA) general manager Jennifer Chia, David Kim, Jon Eddy Abdullah and T.Kugan.

“We believe that the popularity and success of Hello Kitty would continue to exert a pull to Maxis' mobile WAP portal, given that there is an increasing number of customers using our portal for games and downloads,” he said after the signing of an agreement with Singapore-based digital media specialist Sanrio Digital (SEA) Pte Ltd yesterday.

Maxis has also launched the Hello Kitty and friends Mobile Fun Club to offer Hello Kitty fans discounts on all mobile downloads as well as limited edition mobile content targeted at 16 to 35-year-olds.

“We hope the Hello Kitty and Friends mobile content would be a magnet for other telecommunications users as well and that they will opt for Maxis,” Jon said, adding that the partnership with Sanrio was exclusive for one year.

Based on its statistics, Maxis has 1.2 million MMS users and 1.8 million 3G users, of whom 1.4 million are active users.

Head of products and infotainment business T. Kugan said the digital mobile content and data services segment contributed significantly to group revenue but did not elaborate.

Meanwhile, Sanrio Digital (HK) Ltd director David Kim said that Hello Kitty and Sanrio characters contributed billions of dollars to worldwide sales annually, thanks to its wide range of merchandise comprising more than 30,000 products.

Sanrio Digital (HK) is a joint venture between Typhoon Games (HK) Ltd and Sanrio Wave Hong Kong Co Ltd. It handles the expansion of Sanrio intellectual property assets to various digital and online media.

Its wholly owned Singapore-based Sanrio Digital handles its operations in South-East Asia.


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